Pages

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

In October 2015, the UBC Faculty of Education launched the first Transformative Educational Leadership Program (TELP) cohort, bringing together individuals from across BC’s K – 12 system interested in transforming themselves and their communities by exploring and engaging in dialogue and debate about major challenges and opportunities facing school districts.Led by Drs. Judy Halbert and Linda Kaser, the program was a great success providing participants with relevant and in-depth interaction alongside innovative researchers, practitioners, and world-class scholars, at the beautiful UBC Point Grey campus. Hear what the 2015/16 participants shared about their experience.

We are excited to be launching the second cohort in October 2016, with applications due by September 11th.The TELP is for highly-motivated individuals who already have a masters degree and want to expand their world-view, gain new experiences and raise their academic credentials to new levels. Spaces will be limited to ensure meaningful interaction.

“I was very grateful to be part of the TELP cohort and to learn with and from such an exceptional group of leaders. We were engaged in rich and meaningful dialogue and had the opportunity to hear from top educational researchers from around the world. I feel I am part of a network of leaders now and that I will apply what we learned into my work at the school and district level.”

- Birgitte Biorn, Principal, SD 38 Richmond

“Pressing pause in one’s busy professional life and taking the time to read, learn, reflect and apply current educational research to practice is the hallmark of TELP. Case studies from provincial leaders, and dialogue with international experts, coupled with first rate leadership by Drs. Halbert and Kaser, position this program as an inspiring catalyst to transforming learning not only in one’s own district context, but in making a difference in learning systems across BC.”

- Terry Taylor, Superintendent of Schools, SD 10 Arrow Lakes

“TELP has given me insight into, and improved understanding of, the transformational goals for public education in BC. I’ve acquired tools and language that translate seamlessly between the educational and the business divisions of school districts.”

Saturday, August 13, 2016

Linda and I are just back from ten days in
Sydney and Melbourne where we had the great opportunity to work with close to 700
school leaders in eleven different sessions held in a variety of settings.What each of these groups had in common was
their interest in applying the spiral of inquiry to developing, deepening and
extending the work of professional learning communities.

In addition to learning, somewhat to our
dismay, that it can be really cold in Australia in winter, we also had a chance
to reflect on some key ideas that we believe can contribute to strengthening
the impact of our inquiry work here at home.

Here are our current top ten:

1 The pull of curiosity can be more powerful than the push of policy. A challenge for district,
school and network leaders is to create the conditions for teachers to be
professionally curious. Intentionally
and strategically asking the four key questions
- and then acting on the responses - is a starting point in building educator
curiosity about what is going on for their learners.

2.The power of giving it a go. We learn about the potential of the spiral of
inquiry to change outcomes for learners – of all ages – by giving it a go. Once
we have some basic understanding of the spiral of inquiry, we get started and we
learn together from our actions. The first time through gives us the
opportunity to understand how the spiral works, and after that the work just
gets deeper and deeper.

3.You can start anywhere. While we teach
the stages of spiral as a sequence, the reality is that you can start anywhere
– as long as ultimately you pay attention to all of the stages. Your curiosity
may have been piqued by some new learning experiences that you had during the
summer. You may have read an article, seen a YouTube clip or attended a
conference that got you thinking about your own learners. So you might go right
from new learning to scanning. Or, you may have had some niggling thoughts
about your own practices that you aren’t sure are as effective as they might
be. You have a hunch that something may not be quite right. Time to scan and to
check it out.

4.Mindset matters. Ever since Carol
Dweck’s book, Mindset: The New Psychology
of Success was published in 2006 we have been encouraging all our grad
students and every participant at any workshop we lead to read this book.
Subsequent research studies have validated the importance of mindset in
developing confident resilient learners. If you have yet to seriously explore
the research on mindset, make this the year it happens. And once you have done the reading, then make
sure you develop ways to teach the importance of mindset directly to your
students and to the families you serve. The evidence is simply too compelling
to ignore.

5.The meso level is where change action takes place. In Schooling Redesigned, one of the final publications from the OECD
study on Innovative Learning Environments, David Istance argued that in all the
cases reviewed as part of this work, it was a rich web of networks and
partnerships that lead to substantive and meaningful innovation. The argument is no longer whether innovation
is motivated from the top or from the bottom, or indeed from the middle. Rather, it is the extent to which systems
support networks and partnerships across all levels.

6.Shared language and common frameworks build coherence. The findings of the
Learning First study on teacher professional learning in high performing
systems (http://www.ncee.org/beyondpd/)
emphasized the importance of teacher professional learning being inquiry-based,
linked and coherent. We believe that the
more BC schools and districts are intentional about using the spiral of inquiry
to change outcomes for learners, the more linked and coherent our system will
become.

7.Our goals should be hardand we need to double down. We have been pushing towards achieving our goal
of EVERY learner crossing the stage with
dignity, purpose and options for close to ten years. At one point we thought
achieving this goal would be a cool way to celebrate Canada’s 150th
birthday in 2017. We won’t be popping the champagne just yet as we aren’t quite there. As an increasing number of schools
and districts in BC take up this challenge – and are able to say how close they
are getting to make this a reality – this may be the perfect time to pick up
the pace.

8.Aboriginal education is for everyone. We
have been inspired and encouraged by the ways in which educators across BC and
the Yukon are picking up their paddles, getting into the canoe, and paddling
together to make the changes that are so necessary to support our Aboriginal
learners. Our vision for AESN is that together
we create an inquiry community where everyone learns and works together to
ensure that every Aboriginal learner crosses the stage with dignity, purpose
and options - and that together we
eliminate racism in schools.

9.Keep it simple. Sometimes it seems like the biggest challenge
for us as educators is to keep things simple and focused. If a one-page plan is good, wouldn't a ten
page plan be even better? Not true.
Whether we are writing growth plans, designing rubrics, creating
learning continuum or writing personal professional plans, it is too often the
tendency to keep adding and adding.Put down the ducky. At the NOII symposium in May Helen Timperley ended her remarks
with a clip from Sesame Street (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acBixR_JRuM)
that made the point that when we are learning something new, we have to decide
what we are going to stop doing. What’s
the ducky you are going to put down??

Ten is such a nice tidy number – and it
isn’t quite enough. If we could add one more to the top ten – it would be this.
Friendship Matters.What was so special about being in Australia
this time was to see new friendships being formed, to deepen friendships
already in place, to create new opportunities and possibilities for
collaborative work in the months and years ahead and to hear abut how much
Australian visitors to BC have appreciated the warm welcome and gracious
hospitality of school districts hosts. Margaret Wheatley argued that very great
change starts from very small conversations. Change happens when one friend
turns to another and says, “I have an idea, what if….?” We have seen great things happen when friends
get together and take action on what really matters most. Sometimes those
friendships take us on journeys we could not have anticipated.